A pulse supercharger is used for closing the intake duct of an internal combustion engine during an intake contact, so that vacuum pressure is produced in the combustion chamber when a piston of the internal combustion engine is moving in the direction of bottom dead center. If the pulse supercharger is then opened suddenly, the aspirated air column is accelerated due to the vacuum pressure in the combustion chamber, so that a pulse-type pressure wave is created which penetrates into the combustion chamber. An escape of the overpressure wave is able to be prevented by timely closing of the pulse supercharger, so that compression of the combustion air is achieved overall.
Compression of the combustion air helps to improve the torque behavior of an internal combustion engine. However, compression of the combustion air also goes hand in hand with an undesired increased knocking tendency of an internal combustion engine.